January 9, 2009 4:35 PM PST

Slacker Radio brings BlackBerry a neat caching trick

by Jessica Dolcourt
Slacker on BlackBerry(Credit: Slacker)

This week at CES, Slacker made good on its word and released a version of its mobile, streaming, Internet Radio app for BlackBerry.

Slacker Radio for BlackBerry, a free over-the-air download for BlackBerrys running version 4.3 and above, gratifies with crisp album art, intuitive navigation, and all the customized streaming stations you could want.

What impressed us most is Slacker's newly added feature--right now just for BlackBerry--that caches songs as they play, allowing you to essentially play back your stations offline. It only works if you've got a microSD card, mind you, but once you're set up, you'll be able to crank tunes in the background while e-mailing and otherwise futzing with your phone.

The only catch: the app currently works for U.S. customers only.

Topics:

CES - Cell phones and smartphones

Tags:

CES 2009,

Slacker,

BlackBerry

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Add a Comment (Log in or register) (6 Comments)
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by January 9, 2009 5:09 PM PST
I downloaded this and tried it this morning. Other than slowing down my blackberry a little bit, I was pretty impressed with the functionality.

I also rode BART with it playing - from 16th street station to Montgomery station and it continued to play the entire ride. Not sure if that's one of the caching features or I just happened to get TMobile service the entire ride, but I not expecting it to play for my whole ride.
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by danisnotstan January 10, 2009 10:37 AM PST
I first tried Slacker on my computer a few months ago and was impressed. I was thrilled when I got the email from them telling me the app was available for Blackberry! I think this is a pretty bold move on their part considering if they had someone on the fence about buying the Slacker Portable player, they pretty much just helped nudge them in the right direction! Now I just saved $200 that I almost spent on their portable player and I dont even have to carry another device with me! The app works and looks really nice. It seems that all features of the "PC" version are still there. It can be a little sluggish for a few seconds every now and then but overall very smooth most of the time. This is on a Sprint 8330 using whatever factory OS that came installed (4.2 or 4.3?). I finally discovered how the "cached" stations work. All you do is select the station you want to cache by selecting the option on the menu. Then you plug the Blackberry into your Internet connected computer and select "mass storage mode". In Windows it will give the pop-up box and you select to connect to Slacker. I have 4 stations saved and it took 6 minutes to update my stations and settings. After this, go to the stations list and select "cached stations". This is where you access your stored stations for use without an Internet connection, thus where they claim significant battery savings. I will say that skipping songs is much faster when theyre cached. I just figured this out this morning so I cant confirm the battery claims, however, if its not streaming non stop using EVDO then its a no brainer that this will save battery life. I did test my battery life the first full day that I had Slacker installed by leaving the app running in the background for faster start up and by playing music for a few songs here and there throughout the day while using Opera Mini at the same time and my battery still had 40%. I charge it over night and had it on from 7:00am until 2am so thats fine with me. Slacker also automatically paused when my phone rang... nice! Volume could be louder (I plug into a direct AUX jack in my car) but this is probably more to do with the phone since MP3's play quiet also. Overall, the question isn't if you should download this, it should be WHY HAVENT YOU DOWNLOADED THIS YET?!?! Sorry Sirius Satellite Radio , but my service will be cancelled shortly!
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by sarah_oneill January 10, 2009 3:15 PM PST
That's an interesting part of one day where lots is happening. There's some more CES stuff at <a href="http://www.atelier-us.com/events-and-conferences/article/day-one-at-ces-shows-microsoft-panasonic-and-palm">this article</a>.
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by TBolt January 11, 2009 11:51 AM PST
I'm glad to see that Slacker is getting stronger by adding even more innovative services. Yahoo is canceling its radio service option, which never made it beyond the computer.

Way to go, Slacker! Love streaming my tunes on my Berry!
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by Sukki007 January 14, 2009 2:07 AM PST
I wonder what I'm doing wrong. I downloaded Slacker onto my BB Pearl last night, tried to get it going this morning. All I keep getting is warnings saying that the application is "trying to break into a firewall", which is in "violation of IT terms." Until I can figure out what's wrong, all I can do is uninstall it and give it a big, fat ZERO.
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by shane_amj February 26, 2009 2:57 PM PST
You have to disable the Firewall in your BB. Go to Options>Security>Firewall the disable
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